Passersby on the Oak Park street gaped. The crowd assembled for the occasion applauded.
All because of the man in the red shirt with perfect pitch. As a leader of the club dedicated to championing the works of author Edgar Rice Burroughs, it was only natural that University of Louisville professor George McWhorter would call the ceremony to order with the Tarzan yell.
And with the victory cry of the bull ape, for that’s what Tarzan’s roar emulates, the Historical Society of Oak Park-River Forest dedicated a plaque in the North Boulevard building where Burroughs once maintained an office. The moment was a high point in the 2005 Dum-Dum, a five-day meeting of the Burroughs Bibliophiles that is named for the gathering of the apes in the Tarzan stories.
But Burroughs wrote more than just jungle books. His science fiction influenced many writers, including Ray Bradbury. (“John Carter of Mars” is being made into a feature film.) Though he never made it to Africa–the setting of many Tarzan adventures–he witnessed both the Chicago Fire and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, even becoming, in his 60s, a war correspondent during World War II.
And with Village Trustee Greg Marsey reading a proclamation announcing “Edgar Rice Burroughs Week” in Oak Park at the plaque dedication, the author continued his slow ascension toward the rarefied air of town icons such as Ernest Hemingway and Frank Lloyd Wright, a trajectory that has begun to happen in literary circles as well.
“It took a while for him to get off the pulp magazine lists,” admitted McWhorter, who now serves as curator of the 100,000-volume Burroughs Memorial Collection at the University of Louisville. “A friend of mine at Duke University has published a group of Burroughs’ letters, and they’re very much sought after now.”
Oxford University in England was one of the first to embrace Burroughs in the 1960s, McWhorter added. “In this century, many more college courses are being offered in pop culture, and he’s one of the main courses in that,” he said. “Probably his best novel is `The Land That Time Forgot.’ It’s a fantasy on prehistoric life in a big volcanic crater which was preserved into the 20th Century.”
Some of the Burroughs Bibliophiles already have traveled more than the man they’d come to honor. Philippe Badre flew all the way from St. Genis Pouilly, France, a town near the Swiss border, where he is a tax adviser and a comic-book dealer. He has even been to Africa.
“When I was a kid, I liked the [Johnny] Weissmuller movies,” he said. “When I grew up, I read the Tarzan novel for the first time. There’s a lot of difference between the movie and the book. And I asked why. I began to be interested by Burroughs’ books.”
Smarter than in the movies
Mike Chapman, a Burroughs enthusiast who runs the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa, has written several books on Tarzan-related topics. He said most people have a distorted perception of Burroughs because of the Tarzan movies.
“Burroughs,” he said, “wrote him as a very literate, intelligent person, and Weissmuller played him as the village idiot. Not because he wanted to; that’s the way MGM wrote the scripts. `Me Tarzan, you Jane.'”
For that reason, Chapman’s favorite movie Tarzan is the 1935 version played by Herman Brix.
“Herman Brix played him with great dignity,” he said. “When [the explorers] found him, he said, `Why, yes, I’m Tarzan, also known as Lord Greystoke. How may I help you?'”
As to why Tarzan has endured, even spawning a 2003 TV series on the WB, Chapman offers a simple explanation.
“He’s the universal character, and he’s the epitome of good versus evil,” he said. “Tarzan never wavers in the books and the movies.”
In the gymnasium of the First Baptist Church (next door to the Write Inn, the conference home), tables of memorabilia and merchandise marked the “Huckster Room,” a popular convention hangout where fans bought and swapped Burroughs books, posters, fanzines, videos, action figures and even a limited-edition Tarzan beer.
Though the crowd of around 100 was predominantly male, a number of women weren’t shy about professing their love for all things ERB.
When Joan Bledig was growing up on the Northwest Side, her parents made her older brother watch after her as they played in the forest preserves near their home. Her brother and his friends started acting out the Tarzan stories with everyone adopting a character.
“By default, I became Jane,” she said. “I was just fascinated by this. I was 6 or 7. Being a terrible tomboy, swinging across the river on a vine really appealed to me.”
Her favorite book? That’s easy.
“`Tarzan’s Quest.’ Because that’s the book where Jane kicks ass, and that’s the best way to describe it.”
Mary Fabian of Pittsburgh said the message of Burroughs’ writings is what drew her in.
“It’s the stories themselves,” she said. “They were characters who had good morals, and they stood by them. They didn’t waver, and I just admire that.”
From Sears to the silver screen
As scholarship on Burroughs has increased, so has research into his Chicago roots.
He was born in a home on what is now a vacant lot across from the United Center. He worked as a stenographer for Sears before finding success as a writer, at which point he could finally afford to move his family to Oak Park.
By 1919, he was gone for good, bound for California, where Hollywood had taken a liking to his Tarzan character and where a city, Tarzana (naturally), has since grown up around his estate. But his many Chicago admirers, led by convention organizer Jerry Spannraft, helped create a museum room inside the Historical Society dedicated to the writer.
As the evening wore on, the Burroughs fans sampled wine and cheese at the museum and took photos of the Burroughs mementos–and of each other. For, although the convention is an annual one and moves around the U.S., less-formal gatherings happen throughout the year in members’ homes. A common interest in Burroughs, they say, has spawned deeper relationships.
Bill Ross of Annapolis, Md., and Mike Conran of Grand Rapids, Mich., see each other only about four times a year but consider themselves best friends. Conran was best man at Ross’ wedding eight years ago.
“When we first met, we sat in a hotel room and talked till 4 o’clock in the morning,” Ross said of their meeting 25 years ago at a science-fiction convention. “I plan vacations around getting together with him.”
They talk about more than just Tarzan, Conran added. “We talk about kids, we talk about how work is going. We talk about all this other junk that everybody else talks about.
“When you walk away from here,” said Conran of the Dum-Dum, “what you remember are the friendships.”
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Moi Tarzan, vous Jane?
Test your knowledge of Tarzan trivia and other Burroughsian tidbits.
QUESTIONS:
1. At what Chicago hotel did Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller swim?
2. What actor who played Tarzan changed his name to avoid typecasting?
3. What does the movie “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” have to do with Edgar Rice Burroughs?
4. In what film does Tarzan battle the Nazis?
5. What was the first language Tarzan learned?
6. What Tarzan actor later married Burroughs’ daughter?
7. Who was the voice of Jane in Disney’s 2002 animated feature?
8. How does Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle at the Museum of Science and Industry figure into the Burroughs story?
ANSWERS:
1. The Hotel Inter-Continental.
2. Herman Brix changed his name to Bruce Bennett and became a successful character actor, most notably opposite Joan Crawford’s Oscar-winning role in “Mildred Pierce.”
3. “Sky Captain” director Kerry Conran is slated to direct Burroughs’ “John Carter of Mars.” (Conran is no relation to Mike Conran of Grand Rapids, Mich., who attended the 2005 Dum-Dum.)
4. “Tarzan Escapes.”
5. French.
6. James Pierce, the last Tarzan of the silent-film era. They met at a party at Burroughs’ estate.
7. Actress-singer Minnie Driver.
8. Moore asked a number of authors for miniature books to house in the library of her castle. Burroughs was the only one to respond with a complete, unpublished work–it even had illustrations. Guests at the 2005 Dum-Dum got a private showing of the rare book from the museum.
— P.K.
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pkampert@tribune.com
